Saturday, 7 September 2013

Aggressive Running - What's To Fear?

When new players step into a Runner’s shoes for the first
few times it can be a very daunting proposition. Across the table the Corporation is
installing all sorts of cards face down - daring you to take him on and risk
the wrath of the ICE he’s ready to rez.

You want to run but he has ICE in the way.
Is it a Code Gate? Is it a
Sentry? Is it a Barrier? Whatever it is doesn’t matter because you
haven’t got any Icebreakers installed so you’re going to run into it at full
speed and defenceless. It’s a kamikaze
play.

Right?

Wrong.

While running into ICE in the first few turns usually
guarantees an unsuccessful run it is often well worth doing anyway. The cost to the Corp of rezzing his ICE is
often greater than the cost to you of hitting it. Often you’ll get nothing worse than a bloody
nose from an ↵End
the run subroutine, a bloody nose which it cost the Corp precious credits to give
you.

The flip side to this aggressive running is what happens if
the Runner sits back afraid of the unrezzed Ice and builds his rig
instead. One of my friends who is learning
to play Netrunner often looks at my Corp in despair as I’ve got a bunch of
unrezzed Ice and a ton of cash waiting to rez them. “You’ve always got so much cash, you could
rez anything” he complains, but the reason I have all that cash is because he’s
never asked me to spend any of it. More
than that, by installing his programs and resources and hardware he’s actually
made my Ice better because now he’s got targets for my ICE to trash, or
resources I can shred if he gains a Tag!

Turn one, Click one: the Runner is in a great position to run into ICE as there’s
virtually nothing you can hit that actually hurts. There’s even less that hurts you more than it
hurts the Corp’s bank balance to rez the ICE in the first place. You’ve no programs to lose, no resources to
lose, you can pay to clear any Tag you receive, any scary Bioroid Ice can be
broken by using clicks and you can draw cards to replace any net damage you get…
what can go wrong?

Running into Ice early in the game is often a great plan: at
the cost of a Click to run you suck money out of the Corp’s bank account, you
put pressure on the Corp’s resources and defences and gain valuable information
about the Ice you’re facing and the Icebreakers you need to install first.

The real question to bear in mind is: what’s the worst could
happen? What’s the worst piece of Ice
you could run into by running with your first click?

Neural Katana

The dreaded Neural Katana has a very strong claim for being the
worst thing that can happen to you on your first run. For the cost of four credits to rez the
Katana the Corp is able to force you to discard three cards from your hand - as
you start the game with five cards it’s not a lethal blow but it still hurts. You can spend your next three Clicks to draw
replacement cards but that means you’ve effectively spent your entire first
turn in a single run. Ouch. On the plus side at least you now know the Katana is there and won't ever run into it with only two cards in hand!

Cost to Corp: 4 credits.
Cost to Runner: 3 cards.

Hunter/Draco

Hunter and Draco are very similar cards that hurt the Runner
in similar ways. Hunter won’t stop the
run so you still get to access the server you ran at, but you probably have to
spend a Click and two credits to clear the Tag you’re going to get. That doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as Neural Katana but it sets
you back for the rest of your opening turn.
Worse yet it only cost the Corporation one credit to rez so they hurt
you for minimal cost, unlike the Neural Katana.

Draco also only costs one credit to rez, but unlike Hunter
it will stop the run if the Trace succeeds.
At Trace2 the Runner can often get better economy by paying
to increase their Link, but if Draco is being played by NBN their identity can
make it Trace4, which makes it a Hunter that ends the run.

Cost to Corp: 1 credits.
Cost to Runner: 2 credits and a click.

Caduceus

Unlike Neural Katana and Hunter running into Caduceus won’t
punish the Runner, but what makes this card a painful one to hit early on is
that it is likely to end your run at the cost of NO credits to the Corp. If the first trace succeeds the Corp gets the
money back that was spent to rez Caduceus, then a second trace either ends the
run or forces the Runner to spend credits.
Caduceus is one of the few cards that costs the Corp nothing (Shadow is
similar, handing the Runner a Tag instead of ending the run) and that’s what
puts it into this list.

Cost to Corp: 0 credits.
Cost to Runner: the click you spent to run.

Pop-Up Window

Finally, like Caduceus the humble Pop-Up window costs the
Corp nothing to rez in front of the Runner, and in fact it actually PAYS the
Corp while taxing one credit from the Runner.
In terms of impact the Pop-Up Window does very little – it doesn’t stop
the run, it doesn’t make the runner discard his hand, it doesn’t make him spend
a click clearing tags – but you can’t argue to much with the subtle economic
drain of taking one credit from the Runner and giving it to the Corp. The only downside for the Corp is whether the
benefit from Pop-Up Window was worth the click spent to install it, especially
if it’s on a central server and the credits gained will be lost when more ICE
layers are installed later in the game.

Cost to Corp: -1 credit.
Cost to Runner: 1 credit

Those four cards probably represent the worst that a Runner can hit on the first turn, especially on the first click. Neural Katana represents a real problem because losing three cards from your opening hand is no joke - you probably like those cards. The other three are more like a sliding scale of economic annoyances, from the relatively expensive cost of removing a tag from Hunter to the minor hassle of a distracting Pop-Up Window.

And that's it.

From 50+ pieces of ICE currently in the game there is just ONE that you have any reason to be truly scared of, turn one click one. ONE. All other pieces of ICE are costing the Corp as much to rez as they're costing you by ending the run - even the big ICE that punish you, like a Tollbooth, will cost the Corp pretty much their whole credits just to hurt you nowhere near as much.

So what have we learnt? Like Usain Bolt you'll usually want to start running as quickly as possible. Spending a click to run and force the Corp to spend 3 credits to rez a Wall of Static is a great use of your clicks. Later in the game you've more cards installed that are vulnerable and the Corp has more Ice installed to set up punishing combinations like Chum-Neural Katana that can actually kill you.

Don't be put off by unrezzed Ice and a stash of credits. What's the worst that could happen? Not, it turns out, anything too bad.

This topic was initially discussed on Boardgamegeek HERE (although it rapidly turned into deep debate about the merits of Data Hound)

About The Author

David Sutcliffe has over 20 years experience of competitive TCG, LCGs and Miniatures gaming since 2000 he has written for a number of outlets, including official strategy analysis and event coverage for Magic: The Gathering and the World of Warcraft TCG from World and Continental Championships, Pro Tours, Grand Prix and Darkmoon Faires.

In December 2015 he ended his long love affair with shuffling cardboard and switched to rolling dice instead. David has moved over to the X-Wing Miniatures Game to begin his new blog about that game: Stay On The Leader.